Listen to Me
by Miss Becky
Summary: Hearing the last requests of the dying is never easy.


Listen to Me  
By Miss Becky  
  
  
Disclaimer: All characters owned by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  
Summary: Hearing the last requests of the dying is never easy.  
Rating: R, just to be safe.  
Spoilers: None really, as long as you've been watching.  
  
  
****  
  
  
His head is heavy in my lap. His blood is sticky on my skin. One day it will be different, and I will be the one who lies dying in someone's arms, but today is not that day. Not yet.  
  
We wait for evac, silently hopeful in the night. The wounded lie close together, stifling their moans as they wait for the suppressed throb of the approaching helicopter. The uninjured stalk the perimeter, weapons at the ready. Only I participate in neither ritual, for my job right now is providing comfort to this man dying in my arms.  
  
It was demons, of course. I do not even know their name. Perhaps they told us, but if so I have forgotten. I do not ask questions. I know that information is something precious, to be hoarded and given out only to the right person at the right time. Once I knew someone who asked questions. Once I loved someone who was made from the sun, but she made me question everything, about myself, my love, and my place in life. Since then I have not asked a single question.  
  
The man in my lap groans and I tighten my grip, not even knowing if he can feel it. His eyes are open but glassy, and I know for certain he cannot see me. He is going fast, and there is nothing any of us can do for him. Once I thought I knew this man, but that was before I learned that we all hide our true selves and never let anybody in.   
  
"Riley." He coughs and groans again. A bloodstained hand lifts and hovers in the air over his shattered chest, then falls back again. "Listen to me, Riley."  
  
I could reprimand him for not using my rank, but he remembers a time when I did not wear the stripes on my shoulder, so I let it slide. "Stay quiet, soldier."  
  
He does not listen; apparently that is my job. "I have to tell you something."  
  
I stiffen. Hearing the last requests of the dying is never easy. But for the sake of our old, false friendship, I will listen. I might even fulfill his request.  
  
"The night we left." He coughs, blood spraying from his lips. I hold myself still as some of the wet liquid lands on my chin. I should not be leaning over him like this, but it is easier to hear him this way.  
  
"Left," I repeat flatly. We have been to many places together. I do not even know where we are now. These shitty villages do not have names, not anymore. They are all alike, and the only thing that sets them apart is who is dead at the end of the mission.  
  
"Sunnydale," he says.  
  
For a moment the word exists in a vacuum of space and sound; it means nothing to me. Then a tidal wave of memories crashes into me, and I flinch back, pulling as far away from the dying man as I can without dumping him from my lap.   
  
I do not want to remember these things. If I could, I would hit this man, make him bleed some more.   
  
"You have to know, Riley," Graham says. "I can't..."  
  
Whatever he has to say, I do not want to hear it.  
  
"She came. Riley. That night. She came. To say good-bye. To stop you. I don't know. I saw her. She came and she called your name."  
  
My woman of the sun, who was so in love with the night that she didn't even know it. I forget to breathe in the wake of his words, and the pain that knifes through my chest is shocking in its ability to make me feel. It has been so long since anything affected me that I have a hard time reconciling the pain with who I am. Riley Finn does not hurt, he does not feel. I do not understand this pain, but I know I do not like it.  
  
"Are you listening to me?" Graham demands. His voice has taken on that strident tone that only the dying can achieve. He has nothing left to lose, and he damn well knows it. "Did you..." He coughs again and this time a shout of pain is wrung from his throat.   
  
I sit through this, still as stone. When he quiets, his head rolls on my lap. "Did you hear me?" he asks.  
  
"I did," I say.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," he says. "But I thought you should know."  
  
It might have made a difference, once. It would have mattered, once. It might have done me some good to know she had cared enough to come. The reason she came was unimportant. And I do not need to know. I do not ask questions anymore.  
  
"Riley." The words are harder for him to say now, and I cannot help feeling glad. "You shouldn't be here."  
  
It is true that I am here by choice now, an officer with rank and status, a man who has earned the right to leave. But there is nowhere I can go, nowhere else that will take me as I am, and so I stay.  
  
"Get out of this place," Graham whispers. "Before it's too late."  
  
It already is, I almost say, but then I remember that I am supposed to be the one listening.  
  
He is silent then, and I realize that I can hear the helicopter now. I look down, but Graham is dead and it is too late for him to say anything more.   
  
I duck my head under the relentless wind created by the chopper blades. The wounded are being helped inside - I still have a few moments to be alone.  
  
For the first time in a year, I allow myself to imagine. I can check in at base, tell my CO I am leaving. There is nothing to stop me. I can don civilian clothing, board an airplane, rejoin society. I have enough money - I have been amply paid both for the job and my silence - that I need never work again, if I so choose.  
  
I can find her, if I want. Be with her again.  
  
"Sir." The others are standing in front of me now, and my time is up. I return to reality with an audible wrenching of something inside.  
  
But I do not forget. When the chopper lifts up, I stare bleakly down at the ground and picture her standing there, crying my name.  
  
  
*****  
  
END 


End file.
